Mobile communication systems continue to grow in popularity and have become an integral part of both personal and business communications. Various mobile devices now incorporate Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) features such as calendars, address books, task lists, calculators, memo and writing programs, media players, games, etc. These multi-function devices also allow users to send and receive electronic mail (email) messages wirelessly and access the Internet via a cellular network and/or a wireless local area network (WLAN), for example. In addition, these devices may allow users to send Short Messaging Service (SMS) messages, Personal Identification Number (PIN) messages, and instant messages.
Given the amount of information now stored on a mobile device itself, such as e-mail messages, and the amount of e-mail messages remotely accessible by the mobile device, a user may wish to search for a specific e-mail either locally or remotely. To facilitate this, some mobile devices include search functionality. They may allow a user to search for e-mails meeting certain search criteria, such as being from a given sender. Further improvements in these local and remote searches of e-mail messages may, however, be desirable.